Cloud Chips

"I suppose you could talk to me," replied Umbrage Shavier. "Answer me!"

Umbrage had changed his name to match his nature. Umbrage was an angry man. His anger was cold. The cold froze the clouds. The clouds turned to chips. The chips circled in the air, dangerously. On the other hand, what were the chips going to do, kill somebody? It was too late for that.

"Well, all right. Maybe it will help," answered Merle. "But what is your question, actually?"

"Why was my life full of pain?"

"Well, how was your life full of pain?"

Umbrage told Merle of his years growing up as the son of a very conservative pastor. In moments of great relived anger, cloud chips sliced through all three of them men present... but ghosts don't bleed.

"Sounds like you have really been through the wringer in life," said Merle when Umbrage stopped to breathe. "You're a tough one for holding out as long as you did."

"Yeah, I guess so. Even my father said that he couldn't believe that with all I'd gone through I was still alive. Nice of him, eh?"

"That's a bit of a dramatic way to put it!"

"Considering he was a huge part in those problems, yeah."

Merle sighed. "What is it about preacher fathers?" He sipped his drink like a prop. "I had a friend who wasn't too happy with his preacher father for years as well, Umbrage.
They seem to get along better now though."

"It was our generation for dissent. You see, for some reason parents seemed for that generation to have children which were more intelligent than their parents - which seems to be a continuing trend in our children, a good thing in my opinion." (Umbrage smiled here.) "And in Christianity the deal is to be better than everyone else. As happened with my father, and probably your friend's also - though I can't speak for him - there was jealousy in how intelligent were were. Anything they said or did, we had a better way to say or do it. Virtually any punishment they handed out - besides physical - we could find a way around it. I actually found a way to blackmail him into doing what I wanted, so I payed attention to his secrets.

Not just that, but we questioned our religion, a HUGE no-no. Another thing is that with many preachers God comes first and their families a distant second. My father was never really around. He may have been around sometimes when he wasn't worrying about his church or his hunting, but he was never really 'there' if ya know what I mean. He actually spent $300 on a deer stand, and we had to go without much food for a month. My mom had to get two jobs to try to support us.

My mom only stayed with him until we kids were out of the house and then she divorced him, something I would have been happy with her doing a long time before. He used to smack me around a bit, but my mom threatened to leave him once if he ever did it again so he stopped until I was 15 then he challenged me to a fight and I beat his ass all over the yard."

"But now you're here."

"I died."

"Well, yes. It's the same thing."

"Lots of pain."

"Dying?"

"Living. A rare and horrible condition."

"Living's a rare and horrible condition?"

"No... what I had."

"What did you have?"

"Pain. Every day incredible pain."

"You mean emotional, right?"

"No, it really was a medical condition."

Merle sighed again. "I think I can guess where this is going. And... two like you in a row... I think Someone is trying to tell me something. You killed yourself, right?

"You're judging."

"No, I'm just weary. It's hard talking to a suicide. It's harder talking to two. Had another one just a minute ago. I need a break, but I can take it with you. Let's just... talk. Just like you talked before the pain."

Umbrage took no umbrage, and the cloud chips' razor-sharp dance died down. The two soon passed on to idle chit-chat.